PR Resource

Propaganda to have any effect needs to have some seeds of credibility.  That is why this North Korean propaganda is so sad.  The tour leaders of the infant hospital could not hide that everything was dated and exposed nevertheless for a media show.  The effect is of propaganda that is cynical self-delusion on the part of the North Koreans.  They are fooling no one but themselves, and apparently, they don’t understand that.  For who among the citizens of North Korea will ever see the media reports that came from the press tour?  Since none of the reporters were fooled by the staged show, there was no chance that the external media would report the “mighty advances” of the North Korean regime.  If the North Koreans were smart, they would stop these media tours, and let things be as they are.  However, few would assign a high degree of intelligence to North Korean leadership.

Public relations recognizes that the public decides on the reputation and validity of individuals and businesses.  That is why this failed experiment was an act of public relations.  Joe’s Crab Shack tried to do away with tipping but the public would not go along. The reason for the failure is partially due to a mistrust that the restaurant chain would pass along slightly higher prices to servers and kitchen staff. That cynicism is well founded based on the behavior of corporations over the years.  So, Joe’s is cutting back on the number of restaurants with a no-tipping policy.  It makes no difference that Joe’s staff was better paid as a result of no-tipping.  Customers want to retain the right to determine who gets tipped and how much.  The oddity here is that other restaurants have successfully implemented a no-tipping policy, and there doesn’t seem to be a diner’s revolt for doing so.  Could it be that the socioeconomic status of citizens makes the difference?  It will take time to find out.  Meanwhile, the public is speaking and Joe’s is listening.

The ecologically conscious citizen wants an electric car in order to stop polluting the atmosphere.  But, it turns out that not all battery-powered vehicles are clean.  In fact, some are no better than a gas engine.  How can this be?  The source of electricity to recharge the car’s batteries has to be taken into account.  In some parts of the US, coal-fired plants are spewing enough carbon dioxide into the air to make up for the lack of pollutants in an electric vehicle.  The irony of the situation is that citizens are feeling good about themselves for choosing to go all-electric.  They are making a public statement that they are concerned about the environment and are inviting others to join them.  They don’t want to hear that their efforts have gone for naught and that they are green and not green.  It is a reminder to communicators in general to make sure of the facts of a situation before promoting it.  The surface might seem plausible, but beneath the facts might be contradictory.

In an emergency, it is easier to gain cooperation of the public.  People want to help.  Once the emergency is past, people want to go back to their daily routines.  That is what makes this action difficult to sustain.  Citizens of California have just lived through a wet winter and are ready to drop water restrictions brought on by five years of drought.  The governor is saying California will be a dry state from this point on and emergency rules must become permanent.  It will take a prolonged PR campaign to gain near universal compliance and some people and organizations will resist to the end.  Perhaps the only way to get rebellious citizens in line is through public shaming.  Tagging someone as a “water waster” could hold that person up for peer pressure.  No one likes a dead lawn and brown plants, but if one is in the situation together with millions of others, it becomes easier to bear.  The governor is counting on that.

A lie repeated often enough can become a fact if enough people believe it.  This appears to be what is happening in this case.  Donald Trump has repeated in the media several times that Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, called him a “genius.”  At issue is translation of an ambiguous Russian word.  Language experts agree that the word does not mean “genius” but perhaps “colorful” or at most, “bright.”  Since most Americans don’t speak Russian and don’t have access to the press conference where Putin talked about Trump, they have only Trump’s translation to go on.  It appears clear that Trump has escalated the meaning of the word to a falsehood,and he is getting away with it.  How is it that candidates can engage in such self aggrandizement?  Perhaps Adolf Hitler said it best: “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.”  Trump is not Hitler, but he has a low regard for truth telling.

Whether justified or not, shooting a captured attacker in the head is poor PR.  No wonder the Israeli defense ministry is bucking public opinion and putting one of its own soldiers on trial.  The video of the service man apparently shows an unprovoked incident where the trooper levelled his gun and drilled a Palestinian.  Israeli public opinion has turned against Palestinians because of their continuous attacks on Jews, but the situation is complex.  Palestinians are confined to a near ghetto existence having been kicked off the land over decades.  Israel claims the territory as a divine right.  The two sides have not agreed on anything and are pitted against each other.  Israel wins the face-off with greater resources but it can’t stop Palestinian attacks.  Hence the occasion for mistreatment of attackers is an ever-present threat to the rule of law that Israel supports.  To sustain its image, Israel cannot afford to stoop to the level of the attackers, but that is hard to do.  Each incident where a soldier is out of bounds is a blow to the country’s image.

We’re moving the server and will be off the air for a few days.  We hope to be back by next Monday.

Dilma Rousseff, the president of Brazil, is proving the need for PR in politics.  She is doing it through losing nearly all of her supporters and impending impeachment.  Apparently, Ms. Rousseff has a volatile temper and icy condescension that alienates those whom she needs to govern.  It doesn’t help that she is a political neophyte elevated to the highest office through the machinations of her predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who, it is thought, could control her and see to it his agenda could be carried out.  Whatever the reason for her ascension from a career in the bureaucracy, she was thrust onto the national stage without the rough and tumble of elections and the need to build a base of support.  She has insisted on her way or else.  She lashes out at those who oppose her and uses vulgar language when she is angry.  She has isolated herself deliberately from politicians on every side.  It is little wonder her impeachment is moving forward.  She has the wrong temperament for higher office and disdain for relating to the public’s representatives.

One of the most robust electronics markets has stalled in its growth.  Manufacturers from Apple to lesser known Chinese brands were selling smart phones by the tens of millions with huge jumps each quarter in shipments.  Now that has stopped.  The market is flat.  Everyone who wanted a smart phone has one.  Growth has turned to conquest sales — booting out a competitor’s phone in favor of yours.  It is time for a change in marketing and PR.   Apple, in particular, will need to learn how to compete in a commodity environment.  It has long depended on the “cool” of its products with extensive features and functions to carry the day.  Now it is trying to go downscale to appeal to the masses who cannot afford its high-priced approach.  This could be a problem for the company, which has long depended on making new markets in which it dominates.  No one is worried about Apple yet, but its stock is under pressure and questions are being asked.  Every market hits maturity — some faster than others.  The smartphone had a good run, but it’s over.

The FBI is scrambling to correct flawed forensic analyses that go back decades.  In this case, it turns out that hair sample examiners had given inaccurate testimony on matches in 95 percent of their cases.  The FBI found that 26 of 28 hair examiners in its forensic laboratory overstated evidence in support of prosecuting attorneys.  It is a black eye for the Bureau, but one the FBI is trying to correct.  The question arises of how this happened in the first place.  The answer appears to be that the forensic examiners were eager to put “bad guys” away and saw no problem in confirming matches that weren’t really there.  This is one more instance that shows how dangerous the power of government can be and why it needs to be restrained.  It is hard to give kudos to the FBI for cleaning up a mess of its own making, but there should be some recognition of the Bureau’s efforts.  It could be resisting efforts to fix the problem — a not uncommon response from bureaucracies.  What the FBI can’t fix are 14 executions of criminals based on hair sample evidence.